Desert Moonscapes~

On By cindy knokeIn Conservation, MY PHOTOGRAPHS, REVERIES, TRAVEL REVIEWS

Carve impossible vistas.

Jumbled and stacked.

Boulders perch, tossed like balls.

Cracked spines.

Desert ice cream cones.

Joshua Trees twist in tortured poses.

Mother Nature’s iconic artistry.

A gift to treasure and protect.

Joshua Tree National Park encompasses almost 800,000 acres and straddles both The Mojave and Colorado Deserts in Southern California. Joshua Trees are not trees at all, but a variety of Yucca, sculpted into bizarre shapes by desert winds. The eerie rock formations were formed eons ago by cooling lava, that cracked and split from fault uplifting, and eroded over time by wind, water and sand.

100’s of species survive in this harsh desert landscape, despite summer temperature that reach well above 100 degrees fahrenheit. Native Americans inhabited this region for thousands of years and their artifacts remain scattered throughout the park. Be careful or you will walk right by them! We encountered this metate, or grinding stone, on a hike.

Cheers to you from Joshua Tree’s stunning and fragile ecosystem~

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276 thoughts on “Desert Moonscapes~”

  3. Gorgeous shots of a very beautiful place, Cindy!
    Lol! At first I read: Moonscapes Desert – I thought, okay, now she’s done it! She’s been to the moon.

    Reply

    1. “There is beauty in every corner if you want to see it.”
      So true of everywhere in the world, especially the places where you must look a little harder to find it, but when you do, it is a joyful surprise.

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    1. So happy you have been here and experienced the desert first hand. Your grandmother wasn’t alone. Museums did this on a grand plundering scale. Hopefully no one is doing this anymore.

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  11. Namaste Cindy 🙂

    Mother Earth excels herself in wondrous ways. She is poetry in motion, but yet, within such a landscape of (perceived) permanence we may never live long enough to witness her change. Your sumptuously-coloured photographs bring us closer to Her: she is amazing!

    As widely travelled as you are, I wonder if you’ve seen the fairy-chimney’s of Cappadocia? Elements within the Joshua Tree landscape and Cappadocia are strikingly similar and yet each is as dis-similar as are our fingerprints.

    I Thank you for posting: I think you’ve added another destination to the list of ‘must-see places’. If only I had chance to see them all! 😀

    Hoping all is well in the Holler, or wherever it is you may be. Take care.

    Namaste 🙂

    DN

    Reply

      1. Namaste Cindy 🙂

        Thank you: one could say much the same about your kindness and generosity, it is unbounded and inclusive and never-ending, thank you.

        Turkey is a wonderful country so rich with history and so eager to be part of the larger world. I have visited but once and thoroughly enjoyed my experience in ways I had never imagined possible: from staring into the marbled-eyes of Hermes to walking in the footsteps of Saint Paul through Anatolia my visit was superb. Cappadocia is breath-taking, spell-binding, enchanting, but above all the sense of spiritual presence – like all ‘holy’ places – permeates every facet of the landscape. It is truly amazing in every way – baked by an intense Sun – and so well worth visiting. No doubt your adventuring ways will take you there at some point in the near future.

        Take care my friend of one and all as you always do.

        Best wishes, Namaste 🙂

        DN

        Reply

        1. Who knows where life will take any of us. That is the mystery and the wonder.
          The only thing I do know, is that one must grab the mystery and wonder of life while one can, before it becomes too late.
          So here’s to you! And living life.
          You don’t have to go places to live life. You can travel galaxies in your mind, which is what you do.
          You will never get old and face death saying to yourself, “Why did I never live?”
          Because your mind enables you to travel farther than I ever could.

          Reply

          1. Namaste Cindy 🙂

            ‘Who knows where life will take any of us. That is the mystery and the wonder.’ Indeed, these are wise words: a mantra of sorts in that every day we extend ourselves into a new beginning ready to embark on fresh adventure, ever eager for immersion within the great wonder that is Love, Life and Living. It is a never-ending dream that never ceases to amaze.

            We all have the ability to imagine and flow energetically into our dreams. We are limitless in that regard: unbounded by physicality, unregulated by rules – free to experience life beyond the beyond. It is both liberation and freedom.

            I love to imagine as dearly as you love to travel and experience the totality of a location: tis why I enjoy reading your Blog…your photographs paint a thousand words from which I take what I need to make my dreams more clearly defined: to add depth and substance and in so doing make those dreams more real to me. But I can never linger for to long before I’m ready to roam some more: the quest is never-ending nor that sense of being driven, of relishing the next dream, the next thought, the next world…and I imagine it is no different for you…if space-flight were affordable, no doubt you’d be one of the first in-line waiting to go! 🙂

            Hoping all is well in the Holler. Enjoy a most pleasant evening.

            Namaste 🙂

            DN

            Reply

    1. I get a sense in the desert of expectancy, for what I am not sure, just a feeling of waiting. Maybe just waiting for darkness when the creatures come out, or waiting for rain, or the patient wait of geological time. I think it is the latter I feel the most in the desert, that, and the assurity that Mother Nature is not done shaking this earth up!

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  15. A fascinating place, you can imagine you are on a different planet in such place. The artifacts make it even more exciting (perhaps they made by aliens visiting us a long time ago) 🙂

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    1. Who knows about the aliens? None of us do.
      Us people now, remind me of the ‘Flat Earth Society,’ in Columbus’s day.
      “The world is not round,” they told Columbus, “You will fall off the edge!”
      I don’t think we have advanced very far past that basic knowledge leap that the earth is round.

      Reply

    1. I hadn’t seen anything from you, in my reader, for a long time. So I just now looked you up, and read about you. You basically impress me a lot. You have this essential joie de vivre. It is such a pure life force. You have also been through significant trauma, and probably, still, will face more, like all of us. But I suspect your joy in life will never leave you and I admire you so much for it.

      Reply

      1. Thanks Cindy. You know I started blogging in Sept of 2017 just after Terry passed away and hsve been blogging ever since writing about my thoughts, things I am doing and how I am coping since Terry passed. Never changed Terry’s blog intro ( wanted to leave it in tact). Some day I need to modify it . For now, I didn’t want his memory to fade. Thanks Cindy. Gary

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  23. NASA did some astronaut training, albeit in the more barren locales, for landing and walking the moon The other location was the floor of Haleakala crater on Maui. They may reprise their roles in preparation for any landing mission to Mars.

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  25. It’s interesting, what you said about the power of the wind in that rather stark place. We were there once, but it was the sun’s power that we felt. I’m glad that wind power is being put to good use now down in the valley.

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  39. I knew where you were from the first photograph! What a magical place. We visited in February for the first time and stayed nearby. How long will you be there?

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  43. From your first picture, I thought, “Is this Joshua Tree?” There is something about the light there, and or the rocks, and or the color of the sand…but it has such a unique signature about it. Beautiful shots of an amazing place!

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  46. Absolutely gorgeous photos. I have never visited in a desert. In the 70s, I ordered Arizona Highways magazine and it was then a first when I saw photos o desert. Thank You sharing these photos with us.

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  49. The splendor of Mother Nature. Beautiful pictures and interesting history. I’ve never been to the desert but I can’t help but wonder how Native Americans were able to live there. Yikes!! When it get to 1 degree over a 100 I’m ready to pack it in.

    Reply

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